Shoppers were horrified to witness a group of teenagers were seen causing chaos and attacking staff before being physically removed from Grimsby’s Freshney Place earlier this week.
According to reports, at around 15:30 on Wednesday 14 February, police were called to the shopping centre following an incident of disorderly behaviour from a large group of children. Onlookers described witnessing a group of youth “causing a disturbance,” by acting aggressively towards staff and other members of the public, damaging fixtures, and otherwise behaving anti-socially.
Speaking to Gi Grimsby News, an anonymous eyewitness said: “Absolutely disgusting scenes in town today. There was a group of boys and girls who looked to be aged between 9 and 14 were destroying Freshney Place and attacking the security staff. It’s made me not want to take my little girl anymore, I had to take her into a shop just to avoid being hit by the things they were throwing.”
They continued: “I felt sorry for the security who are clearly understaffed and undertrained. Kids were just running riot and it makes you think all the new upcoming work is going to get trashed.”
Another onlooker described the situation as a ‘brawl,’ explaining how they had observed teenagers being forcibly removed from the area following what they described as a “physically threatening incident.”
Police say they “attended to help security staff escort the youths off the premises,” but claimed that contrary to witness reports, “no one was assaulted and nothing was damaged.”
Footage seen by Gi Grimsby News does display some evidence of a physical altercation between some youths and security staff.
Freshney Place have been approached for a comment.
